Ingredient Storage

When I was studying food science, one of the topics we spent an incredibly long time on was food preservation.

Figuring out the best ways to stop food from going bad is one of the biggest problems we all face.

Which is why I include ‘Ingredient Storage Best Practices’ and ‘Waste Avoidance Strategies’ for each ingredient in my recipes and meal plans.

If you’re wondering the difference between the two, the ‘Best Practices’ tell you the best way to store each ingredient to keep it at it’s best for the longest.

Whereas the ‘Waste Avoidance’ focuses on what you can do if your plans change and you aren’t going to use an ingredient when you’d originally planned.

If you want to do deeper in each of these areas, this training is for you!

But before we get into the specifics, I wanted to share my ‘summary’ spreadsheet that Caroline has pulled together based on all the recipes and meal plans we’ve written over the years…

My Ingredient Storage Best Practices

Cheat Sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oQZvyUClqkxSqDq0VMx-o6_TnryqzYR-x8lb9Lv_dxE/edit?usp=sharing

Enjoy!

Jx

How to best handle fresh ingredients

One of the biggest challenges with healthy cooking is that fresh produce doesn’t stay fresh forever.

You’ve probably had the experience of getting excited about eating healthier and gone out and stocked up on fresh veg and fruit.

Only to feel overwhelmed every time you look in the fridge.

And a few weeks later, you’re trowing out a heap of veg gone bad with that guilty feeling.

I’ve been there too. And it’s not great.

So we want to make sure you avoid that whole fresh produce trap.

Here’s how…

1. Resist the urge to over buy.

With habit change it’s super important to start small.

So when you’re at the market only buy what you know you’ll actually cook and eat.

I’m totally guilty of over buying and so I often tell myself I’m going to shop again at the markets the following week. This reduces my over-buying tendency and if I do end up with too much, I just can the following weeks market excursion. Easy.

2. Refrigerate ASAP.

If you’re not sure where to store something, the best bet it is to pop it in the refrigerator.

The rule of thumb to remember is that at lower temperatures everything happens more slowly. This includes the three main causes of food spoilage: microbe growth, dehydration and oxidation. Which is why things generally last much longer in the fridge!

3. Protect from exposure to the air.

Uncovered food dries out very quickly, especially in the dry air of the refrigerator. And since fresh produce, like humans, is mostly made out of water, the best thing we can do to keep our fresh things fresh is to prevent drying as much as possible.

I keep pretty much all my fruit and veg wrapped in either the plastic bags I purchased them in or I transfer them when I get them home.

Having a fridge full of veg in plastic bags doesn’t look as nice as having the crisper overflowing with uncovered veg.

But at the end of the week when I can still pull out a head of broccoli that looks just as fresh as when I got it home from the market, I know it’s worth it!

The same goes for protein.

I generally just keep my meat, fish and poultry wrapped in the packaging they were purchased in.

With cheese I tend to leave it in sealed packs. But if I buy a loose piece of parmesan I wrap it in waxed paper or baking paper and then keep in an airtight container or ziplock bag. This way the cheese can breathe but won’t get dried out.

If you follow these three guidelines, you’ll have most things covered.

4. Follow the ‘Waste Avoidance Strategy’.

To make life easier for you and really embed these principles, I’ve included a ‘Waste Avoidance Strategy’ section with each recipe. This gives you detailed instructions for how to best store each ingredient and what to do if your plans change and you aren’t going to be able to cook that meal or building block.

You’ll know exactly how to ‘preserve’ your ingredients and avoid needless waste.

However, if you’re interested in learning more about minimizing waste I recommend checking out Module 4 of Master Your Meal Plan. [/tab] [tab]

4 Food Storage Best Practices

In the previous tab we went through the best way to handle fresh ingredients. Now we’re going to focus on storage tips for cooked ingredients and meals.

You’ll notice a lot of common ground but I wanted to talk about them separately because there are some subtle differences.

1. Chill asap

Once something is cooked and you know it’s not going to be eaten, the safest thing is to chill it quickly. Food spoilage and disease causing microbes thrive in ‘warm’ food so the less time spent at room temperature and above the better.

I usually leave food on the stove of bench top until it is cool enough to touch and then cover and refrigerate as soon as I can. But if I’m not going to be around, I prefer to put warm food straight into the fridge. Don’t worry, modern refrigerators are designed to cope.

2. Cover

As with fresh produce, uncovered cooked food quickly dries out so it’s important to protect it in the fridge and freezer.

I like to keep cooked food in pyrex containers with plastic lids so my food is touching glass not plastic. They’re also great for stacking in the fridge. But covering a bowl with cling wrap will do the job.

Just remember if you cover something hot, you’ll get condensation which generally isn’t a big problem but can make things soggy down the track. And longer term the higher moisture area can make it easier for mould to grow.

3. Freeze ASAP.

If you are planning to freeze something, now is better than later. Unfortunately no one has invented a freezer which magically makes food fresher than when it went into the freezer. So the earlier you freeze, the better your food will be when it gets defrosted.

4. Follow the Prepare Ahead Guidelines.

Every recipe comes with details of whether they can be prepared in advance and how to best store and reheat. So if you’re unsure just check out the recipe page and you’ll know exactly what to do.

7 Golden Rules of Freezing Food.

1. Don’t Refreeze Raw Food

Freezing doesn’t kill food spoilage yeasts and bacteria. It slows them down dramatically but, they’re still alive. Once food is defrosted, the little critters can get going quite quickly, so if you freeze the food again, you can be freezing much higher levels of microbes that may make the food unsafe to eat.

By sticking to rule number 1, you minimize the risk.

2. It is OK to Thaw Food, Cook It and Then Refreeze

By cooking the food you’re effectively killing the yeasts and bacteria and bringing the food back to safe levels. So think of it as starting with a clean slate.

3. Cool Your Food Before Freezing

The problem with putting hot food in the freezer is that it can increase the internal freezer temperature for a while and possibly start to defrost the already frozen food. It makes more sense to cool first but make sure you’re not leaving food sitting around for long periods of time at room temperature.

4. Freeze Things ASAP.

Freezing is a great food preservation technique but it’s only going to be as good as the food that goes in. Best to freeze food at it’s freshest so that it will be at it’s best once defrosted. The wonderful sweetness we take for granted in frozen peas wouldn’t be possible if the peas were old when frozen.

5. Choose Appropriate Packaging / Containers

The air in your the freezer is very dry, otherwise you end up with the insides of your freezer looking more like an igloo. If your food is exposed to the air, it’s going to loose moisture, dry out and get that awful freezer burn look and flavour.

Don’t assume that all plastic bags are going to protect your food in the freezer. Best to go with bags that are designed for freezer use such as thick ziplock bags. Or better yet, invest in some pyrex containers that can go from freezer to oven.

6. Allow for Expansion

Water, and therefore food, expands when it freezes. This is why isn’t not a good idea to leave bottles of wine in the freezer. Make allowances for this and avoid messy explosions.

7. Freeze Smaller Portions

There are 2 benefits here. First is that smaller volumes will freeze and defrost more quickly. Second is that you can just defrost and use what you need rather than having a whole heap of food on your hands. As my Dad found out recently when he splurged on gluten free bread and popped the loaves all in the freezer without slicing.

DO FREEZE

* Bread. Just slice it first so you can quickly defrost in the toaster.

* Soups, stews and stocks.

* Cooked rice. Great to have on hand for egg fried rice.

* Raw Meat & fish – although they will loose some moisture upon thawing,

* Bacon. Great to keep on hand for when there’s an emergency call for pork products

* Bananas. Great for making banana bread or if you remember to peel them first almost instant ‘ice cream’

* Berries. If you ever find yourself with a berry glut, freeze them in a single layer on a tray. Then pop them in a freezer bag or container.

* Pastry. I always make more than I need then freeze the rest for later. If you’d like to explore making your own pastry, check out our Super Simple Baking class.

* Fresh chilli, horseradish, tumeric & ginger. Great to have on hand.

* Herbs. While they will loose their fresh appearance, the flavour will still be great. Especially good for the woody herbs like rosemary & thyme.

DON’T FREEZE:

* Dairy products – except for butter, ice cream and hard cheese.

* Whole eggs – because they crack on expanding

* High moisture fruit & vegetables – like celery or lettuce. When the water expands it damages the vegetable cell walls which turns them to mush when they thaw out.

* Jam. The pectin which causes the jam to gel breaks down at freezing temperatures.

* Mayonnaise.[/tab][tab]

Defrosting

I’m not a big fan microwaves. They take up heaps of space and most people rarely cook with them. But for years I kept one cluttering my tiny kitchen because I thought I needed it for defrosting things from the freezer.

It’s been years since I sold my microwave on ebay.

And I haven’t missed it one bit.

I especially haven’t missed the feeling when you’re defrosting raw meat in the microwave and leave it in too long so that the edges get overcooked while the middle is still icy. Ick.

The Quickest and Safest Methods for Defrosting Without a Microwave

1. In the Fridge

Most of the time I try to get things out of the freezer the night before and let them safely and slowly defrost in the fridge, like a good food-safety-law-abiding citizen. The only problem with defrosting food in the fridge is that it can take 24 hours or more.

There are times when I forget or my plans change, and that’s when I use the following methods…

2. Straight Into a Pan / Oven

If I want to defrost something like a soup or stew, I just run the bottom of the freezer container under the hot water tap for a little while, enough to loosen. I then deposit the frozen chunk into a saucepan and slowly allow it to defrost over the lowest heat with the lid on. Too easy.

Most frozen veg, like peas, are best popped straight into a pan with a little olive oil, or into a saucepan of boiling water. Frozen chickpeas, lentils and beans all work in a similar manner.

3. Defrosting on a Metal Surface

I used to think meat and fish were more tricky to defrost, than tubs of soup, until I learned this wonderful new method. I picked up the idea from a food science book called ‘What Einstein Told His Chef’.

Basically, things will defrost faster the quicker their coldness is taken away from them. So you want a surface that will conduct heat to the frozen item (or take the cold away) as efficiently as possible.

While a metal sink is better than a wooden bench top at conducting heat, the ridged surface means that only part of the food is in contact with the metal. Much better to use a heavy cast iron frying or roasting pan for the maximum heat/cold transfer.

I recently put this to the test defrosting 2 similar sized steaks. One, I unwrapped and placed directly on my cast iron roasting pan. The other I left wrapped in it’s Styrofoam tray from the butcher. I turned both every 20 minutes or so.

And the winner was undoubtedly the steak on the roasting pan which took about an hour to defrost fully. Whereas the other steak took about 3 1/2 hours to get to the same state.

I love it when an experiment proves the point!